Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am acutely aware of the difficulties that these necessary ongoing Covid-19 restrictions are putting on all businesses right across the country. Business owners are making sacrifices in order to protect their communities.

As you are aware, the Government has put in place a comprehensive package to help businesses and workers during the pandemic, including the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP), the COVID-19 Restrictions Support Scheme (CRSS), low-cost loans, the deferral and warehousing of tax liabilities and the waiver of commercial rates.

You will also know that Budget 2021 provided a significant package of tax and expenditure measures to build the resilience of the economy and to help vulnerable but viable businesses across all sectors.

Some schemes do have an eligibility requirement of a business operating from a premises on which rates are payable. The reason for this provision is to assist businesses operating from fixed premises to meet some of the ongoing fixed costs of maintaining those premises.

The Government is very much open to hearing proposals as to how we can help further. Government schemes to support businesses are generally designed to help meet fixed costs that cannot be avoided, and it is not possible to provide compensation for loss of personal income or profits.

Full details of the wide range of COVID-19 schemes are available on my Department’s website at .